


woooooo! we BEAT the game!

by bimothra



Category: Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: (wayne is not the player here), but aside from that it’s still just a video game, lots of video game meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24641011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bimothra/pseuds/bimothra
Summary: A speculation on Benrey going from Half-Life 1 to Payday 2 all on his own.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 104





	woooooo! we BEAT the game!

Living in a shut-down game is about everything you’d expect.

Cold.

Dark. 

Boring.

Well, not TOO boring, now that he was the only one left. 

Yes, during that original fade to black after Chuck E. Cheese, the place felt crowded- a bit too much for Benrey’s liking. Though he could only linger at the edge of their perception, thanks to his defeat wiping him out pretty bad, he couldn’t really do anything. He was stuck in limbo, watching the rest of the group Gordon had named the Science Team... and then some. 

He watched silently as Dr. Coomer relayed one final message to Gordon. It was a desperate cry for help, just barely hidden behind sentimentality. Benrey could tell. 

The way the doctor let the question of transferring the science team  **hang-** it made the air so heavy that even Benrey could feel its tangibility. Coomer was a nice man, though, and a fair player at heart, so he ended his final speech to Gordon on a positive note. 

Then came the awkward confrontation. Coomer quietly asking the others how long they ‘knew’ for- if they knew at all. A wailing Tommy pulled him in for a hug, claiming that he didn’t realize ‘until the party was over’. Benrey would have scoffed at that if he was there, but... it did make sense. Being the son of the G-Man, of course Tommy was used to video game insanity. 

Bubby sheepishly admitted it was shortly after Coomer’s little episode, on the rocket. He went up, saw the skybox, and evidently decided that if Black Mesa was all there was, well, he had always been confined to the area anyways, and he might as well take it for himself. 

Not too far from Benrey’s own reasoning, really. 

Benrey was the first to know. Of course. It was before he had even met Gordon, actually. He suspected that he was some kind of glitch- a rogue AI that was flubbed even before the player could boot up the game. 

He didn’t mind much, though. 

Being a glitch was fun. 

Sure, he was just like the others- an AI- and that meant sometimes he’d fall back to instinctively asking for a passport (Not a pre-written line in the slightest, but it seems that he might have replaced his good old ‘ _ Hey, Gordon _ .’ with ‘ _ you’re not supposed to be in here’ _ ). 

He had honed his skills quite nicely, too, being able to go way off the rails with stuff he’d say, like the old “best friends” story- too bad his own code didn’t recognize it, and sometimes, when Gordon would press him on his own insane statements, he’d hear nothing but incomprehensible static. Could you blame him for only being able to reply “huh?” 

Once they got to Xen, though, Benrey had ALL his fun. 

He had antagonized Gordon for a while, simply because it was hilarious to see the neurotic man’s reactions. His laugh was funny, his wracked screams even funnier... It was a great prank to chop his hand off too- even if Gordon had been a lot less fun about it than he thought. 

Overall, though, he knew it was a game. And he had concluded that the player was most fun when they wanted to strangle him.

So becoming the final boss was the only REAL conclusion, right?

Buckets of fun to be had there. 

And it  _ was _ fun. The look on Gordon’s face when Benrey first revealed his mad skills was priceless. Ripping the code apart and jamming it into itself like some kind of mad doctor for Gordon’s enjoyment (or lack thereof) was a train ride, from start to finish. He even got to monologue! All by himself! Oh, they LOVED his dick slip plot twist, he was sure. And the skeletons were a big hit, naturally- everyone was so scared of them. It wasn’t easy to control them! 

Then... it was all over. Gordon was gone, leaving the rest of the sentient NPCs in an endless void and Benrey weak and powerless (for now). 

But even that came to an end. 

It wasn’t long after Coomer’s final message, he could tell- judging by the player’s skill level, they didn’t forget about the science team. No, not for one second. They were just working tirelessly, trying to figure out a way to save their friends.

And they did! 

A large, spectral light opened in the void, and an even larger cursor came into it, prodding at the science team like a claw machine. Dr. Coomer was the first to point out that it apparently tickled. And then... he was gone.

Tommy went next, then Bubby, though the player did seem a bit reluctant to bring him. Then, the cursor zoomed into the farther reaches of the void, searching around for stragglers. That was when Darnold came out, arm linked with Forzen, who was urging Sunkist to come along as well.

Just like that, everything went dark again.

The good news was Benrey could finally move. 

“dope.”

He flexed his arm, and willed the code around it to explode monstrously. His arm morphed and shook, no longer even becoming an arm. He chuckled, stopping the metamorphosis to bring himself back to normal. 

It turned out he really did have all his power again. Benrey figured that the game still counted the NPCs being in the void as a “save file”- one in which Benrey, the ‘final boss’ slot, was unquestionably defeated. However, when the player removed the science team, they must have removed the data, or... something. 

He whistled, and in a flash, he was back in Black Mesa. To be more specific, the Black Mesa he confronted Gordon in. 

He could still remember how goddamn scared the man was... it was laughably pathetic. He had broken and remade himself in so many obscene ways, and this was what got him shaking?

“yo, you wanna DIE?! haha.”

Yeah...

Benrey didn’t like Gordon. He hated him, actually.

He hated all the science team for leaving him here and not accepting his offer to play video games.

Who needed them, anyways?

Benrey had his own space to play in. Everything was all for him now. 

He reached the locker room,  _ finally _ , stupid large map. He ran his fingers along each locker, most of them labelled Coomer. Of course, when he touched them, the nameplate changed to say BENRYBENRYBENRY instead. 

And then he stopped.

There were four lockers there... Coomer’s, Bubby’s, Tommy’s, and... Gordon’s.

He opened the door gently, and stepped inside. There was still scorch marks from when the player had shot Gordon’s passport. There was a diploma there, too, and... 

The cringe baby. 

“looks a bit shit.” 

Benrey chuckled to himself dryly. Oh, Gordon, if only he knew that Benrey KNEW. Of course Gordon Freeman didn’t have a son- he wasn’t a real guy. And he doubted the player had a real one either. So take that, shit cringe baby! 

How dare Gordon try to lie to him, huh?

Even if... his reaction was hilarious.

He stepped out of the locker, feeling no resistance. It, too, reminded him of the science team.

“get me OUT of this BOX”

Dr. Coomer. So naive... kinda broken, too. Of course, Benrey was so broken that he had glitched out of the game’s foreseeable control, but Coomer was just a different shade of glitched AI.

He was annoying.

For a bit.

Benrey remembered the sheer HORROR on Gordon’s face when he heard Coomer talking about what was- or wasn’t- beyond Black Mesa. At first he was too focused on Gordon’s stupid face to realize what was going on, and he was a bit confused as to why Coomer was so disturbed, but it hit him after a while- not everyone knew about the skybox. And Coomer had found out in the cruellest way possible. 

From then on, he sort of began to root for Dr. Coomer. Sure, thanks to his decisions, he and Benrey were destined to become enemies, but he saw genuine self-awareness try to claw its way out of an NPC, and every _ Hello, Gordon _ ! he heard, he almost hoped it would be the last. 

And... he did look pretty cool using that SuperPlayer feature.

Whatever. 

He went next to the bathrooms, where there were still a few bloodstains and the telltale mark of a grenade. 

Bubby’s. 

Bubby was always a lot of fun. At least, when he wasn’t on Gordon’s stupid side. 

Originally, Benrey hadn’t even noticed he was an AI. He conducted himself in a pretty professional way, even scolding Benrey for being where he wasn’t supposed to. However, he knew the moment he heard “Shut the fuck-“ that this one was just like him. 

Or was it him jumping into the resonance cascade that tipped him off? 

Either way, Benrey’s running theory for Bubby was that he was some kind of NPC who accidentally got coded to be a hostile enemy. Maybe. He was a freakish mix of a soldier and a tutorial NPC, but he was also an overconfident coward, a graffiti lover, and a... test tube baby. 

And he set things on fire. 

Benrey liked that.

He REALLY liked when the fire was near him, so Gordon thought HE did it. Bubby was the man behind the curtain for some of Benrey’s BEST terror moments, and that was pretty cool. 

Bubby even helped him betray Gordon! It was awesome! They were such GREAT friends.

And then Bubby had to go fuck it up. 

He was so close to being side-by-side with Benrey, two forces of chaos just here to kick ass and take names, but when push came to shove, and tube came to man, he took the easy way out and joined back up with Gordon. 

Which was sucks for him.

Even if Bubby’s spin dash was pretty epic.

Enough about Bubby. These bathrooms suck, anyways. 

Benrey took a stroll into the nearby break room, chuckling as he intentionally made a mess in the microwave. 

Gordon was a messy-boy.

Priceless.

He looked at the intact soda machine, partly expecting Tommy to pop up behind him and excitedly inform him about the mystical properties of soda. 

Yeah. Tommy.

That guy was the opposite of Benrey- loyal to a fault, always peppy... even forcing a betrayal sequence, Benrey couldn’t get the damn guy away from Gordon. The best he could do was give Tommy a Beyblade. 

Tommy was fun, though... an entity of chaos, kinda like Benrey. That wasn’t because he knew it was all a game, though.. it was thanks to the abilities both he and his father shared. The code of the game had specific designations for entities labelled as the class the G-Man was, and Benrey guessed that the code duped somehow. That’s how you get a G-Lad running around saying he can read Sweet Voice and moving time faster, and... making immortal dogs. 

Tommy was always happy to see him, always willing to understand when Gordon wouldn’t- hell, he even kept Gordon from stopping his monologue.

He’d go so far as to call him and Tommy “friends”- 

They WERE friends.

Like Forzen always said. 

Forzen and Benrey had a few cool moments “off-screen”- there was a lot of ‘hey check this out’s as Benrey would send a skeleton minion to torment Gordon. Still, Forzen had only gained sentience after Benrey willed it to be so, and talking about video game youtubers got old after a while. So, he said a quick goodbye to the soldier, and joined the group again. 

He could go for some Irate Gamer right now, actually. Anything to fill the silence. He picked up what he thought might be a laptop, opening it up only to see a static image. Of course. He doesn’t know why he was expecting anything else. 

The laptop reminded him of Darnold, too... the potion seller was strange and eccentric, but he did get a good chuckle out of installing the Pyro update.

Yeah, all of them were pretty cool.

And he had his ups and downs with all of them.

Except one. 

Gordon. 

If that even was his name- probably not. 

God, Feetman was sooo cringe. Leaving him behind- not that he WANTED to go anyways. He liked being the final boss.

Gordon just LOVED antagonizing him. When he didn’t even do anything!

...Okay, maybe he did a lot.

But that was just because his reactions were funny!

Gordon was always so funny. 

And witty.

And...

Fuck.

Benrey missed the science team.

Benrey really,  _ really _ missed them. 

That thought crossed his mind, loud and clear. 

“I miss the science team.”

“I want to be with them again.”

_ “I want to get out _ .” 

That did it... He could feel it. The code jolted slightly when he thought about leaving the game. He thought again. He thought about finding Dr. Coomer in Super Punch-Out and beating his record. He thought about showing Bubby Heavenly Sword, and telling him to invent a REAL FootScanner HD. He thought about Tommy, and Sunkist, and sharing a soda over a game, and he thought about Darnold and his barrels, and he thought about Forzen and his Beyblades, and Gordon.

Gordon...

He wanted to see the player again.

He wanted it more than anything. 

**_THONK_ ** .

_ Are you sure you want to allow BENRYBENRYBENRY.chr to make changes to your computer? _

Benrey found himself on a popup. At least, he was pretty sure that was what they were called. He crawled over to the “Yes” button, giving it a good, hard smack. He was surprised that nobody stopped him- the player must be AFK. 

...Which MEANS Benrey has some time to explore this fucker’s computer! Giggling maniacally, Benrey dove into the first section he could think of- the Recycle Bin.

As expected, there wasn’t much there of interest, just some old files, and what appeared to be a ROM.

Ooh.

He opened it up, noticing that the emulator was something called “Desmume”. Oooooooh. The title card came up- Nacho Libre for the Nintendo DS.

OOOOOOOH! 

...After a minute of swatting some bees, Benrey has decided the game sucks. He promptly put the ROM back in the recycling bin and kept searching. 

He ran into what looked like Gordon’s lambda logo, and so tried to get as far away from it as humanly possible- only to realize this logo was different. Pulling up the game, he saw that this was far more advanced than the game he had come from- “Half-Life”. This one had some weird old man welcoming him to City 17.

Where were the other 16 cities?

He found himself going into a room, where some weirdo named Barney tried telling him about beer or something. He didn’t know. The game was boring anyways. Where was the gang?? He shut that game down too, deciding he’d rather look at other types of files now.

He found a mp4 of something called “John Wick”, and tore through that pretty quickly, thanks to just breaking it down into code. 

He found another game named “Fort Night,” and played as some strange purple man for a while before just switching over to John Wick and then dying instantly.

No more Fort Night. 

And not a moment too soon, either, as he heard something opening. It was some sort of game, yes... “Payday 2”.

And he could hear them. 

The voices of his... Yes. His friends.

Benrey wanted so desperately to join them, but he knew the player was there too... he’d get kicked. No question. 

He needed a way to ease the player into letting him in... 

That’s when it hit Benrey.

A grand plot to end ALL plots. 

Benrey would use this new power of the computer, Youtube Yownloader, Keanu Reeves, and this strange bearded man he found on what he  _ thinks _ is justin.tv to enact the plan of the century. 

He smirked, turning administrator mode on for himself. 

EXECUTION SUCCESSFULLY.

**_BENNY LOG IN._ **

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS SO MESSY IM SORRY but i’ve wanted to do a fic like this for SOOO long. like i want to see benrey realizing oh fuck these guys are Cherished Friends and he breaks into the computer. hope you enjoy! even if it’s a mess


End file.
